Keyword Bookmark Search with SAS Support

I had noticed recently that when I searched for SAS documentation on Google I wasn’t finding the SAS 9.4 documentation pages I wanted. I tweeted about it, found others had the same issue, and that SAS are working to address it. In the interim, the answer was simple of course … search using support.sas.com instead. However, I’m impatient and am used to just typing my query in the web browser address bar (e.g. sas 9.4 iomserverappender) and then clicking on the first or second link in the search results (when the search query is unique enough). It’s very fast. Finding and clicking a bookmark, waiting for the page to load, locating the search field on the page, typing in the query, clicking the submit button, waiting for the search results page to load, and clicking on the right link …. well that’s quite a bit more work! ;) [#FirstWorldProblems]

So, I’ve switched to using another method where I can keep typing my SAS 9.4 documentation search in the browser address bar AND use support.sas.com at the same time. It might even work out better than before.

In Chrome/Chromium you can add search engines with keywords (right click over the address bar and select Edit search engines… from the context menu):

Chrome Search Engines with SAS Support

In Firefox you have keyword searches via bookmarks: Continue reading “Keyword Bookmark Search with SAS Support”

Handy SAS Usage Note for Troubleshooting UNIX Authentication

Whilst troubleshooting why LDAP based users couldn’t authenticate against a SAS Metadata Server configured for host authentication, I found this handy resource: SAS Usage Note 39891: Using PROC PERMTEST to diagnose UNIX host authentication issues in SAS® 9.2. The server in question already had correctly functioning LDAP host authentication via PAM, it was just that the SAS Metadata Server wasn’t able to authenticate the LDAP users. The usage note helped me fix the problem by leading me to the SASFoundation/SAS9.2/utilities/bin/sasauth.conf file where I found it had methods=pw instead of methods=pam (must have chosen the wrong options at install time). I actually didn’t need to run PROC PERMTEST this time but the usage note contains clear instructions on how to when required. Interestingly PROC PERMTEST doesn’t seem to appear in the Base SAS® 9.2 Procedures Guide.

Spreading the WORK load

I found a handy tip from Rafi in the discussion Allocating SAS WORK Libraries Dynamically in SAS 9.2 in the LinkedIn group SAS Architects/Administrators/Implementation Specialist. It explains how to use a variation on the SAS system option WORK= to spread work libraries over a number of I/O paths using either random or available space methods. This can potentially help you improve I/O performance for work libraries en-masse, and/or get access to more available space, by spreading those work libraries over a number of different devices.

This usage of the WORK= SAS system option is documented in a number of places: